NationStates Jolt Archive

The more and more that I study it, the more and more I become frustrated over the attitudes and results of war, needless death, racism, etc. It is my belife that in war there are no good guys or bad guys when it comes to an army as a whole. Only evil or honest individuals, caught up in something run by the decisions of the government deciding what they do. Not all German soldiers were Jew-hating Nazi hitler worshipers, some just loved their country and had a sence of duty. Not all Japanese soldiers were the ones running the horrible gruesome prison camps. Not every American wanted to see those bombs drop. In war, on the battlefeild, you could have two fathers, different nations. Both run their own small shop, wife, kids, called into the army by their governments for confused polictal reasons, or as human fodder against a barrier. And now they aim to kill each other over it, as enemies. If they sat and talked, I think they would find they are both just fathers, led into something. This problem with governments I belive manisfested itself in one painfully avoidable way:

The boming of Hiroshima, and later Nagasaki, to "end and win" the war. And they didn't bomb military bases, they bomed cities, filled with children, hospitals, civilians. And if you have read the personal accounts of these bombings, and talked personally who people who were in the area at the time, your stomach would turn at some of the things this caused. And why: bullheaded governments.

American leaders decide bombing innocent civilians would be a better solution then invading mainland Japan, costing soldiers lives, and creating a disaterous, drawn out battle. Why? To end the war, they said. But why do either of these options. Japan refused to surender, so why can't we. If they only options, as a leader, I have to end a war is to give up, send our troops into a long, long hell, or cill two entire cities full of innocent people, who have nothing to do with the war, already living in fear of bombs, I would say, "OK, how about a truce, either way, both of our peoples on both sides will die for nothing." And if not, so what, we surender, the war is over. We "LOSE" big deal. So what, we killed all those people, caused all the sickness and gore, just so we could put "we won!" on the top of our newpaper. That is sick.

And the pawns in all of this, the soldiers and civilians the government used as playing peices, as a figure on a sheet of paper, sitting in their cozy offices, and no matter what they lose. If the people in command belive in it so much, they should go into battle themselves. Maybe their policies would change a bit if it was them and their children on the battlefield.

And then the Japanese government decides not to give up either, even in the face of the bomb. For the good of the people they should have at least tried to call a truce with us. But it is very un-Japanese to surrender, but I do not belive they knew the extent of what America was going to do. They surrender not even after Hiroshima, but Nagasaki. And who loses because of the Japanese government, not the people making all the decisions, but the civilians. Way to go.

Who else thinks that in a face of an unwaivering Japan, we should have surrendered instead of killing innocent civilans in gruesome ways, in terrible numbers? All that blood, just to say we won. That's schoolboy tactics. It would have ended the war without invading or bombing.

no i dont think surrender would have been a good idea. it would mean abandoning the millions of korean, chinese, filipino etc civilians to the brutality of the japanese regime

ermmmm....
look how drawn out Guadelcanal and Midway were.
the Japanese civilians were as innocent as American civilians; they wanted each other dead.

Surrenduring to japan was not an option. It could have easily built back up, if we surrendured, and continued plundering other nations(unless Russia felt like having some more territory). A surrendur would have shattered US confidence in the government, and Russia would have been virtually free to take western europe, the middle east, and probably eventually all land that connected to europe/asia.

While I agree that nuclear weapons on civilian bases were unnessecary, we had to force japan to surrendur. A combination of nuking larger military bases or military-important cities, while a heavy blockade destroyed the japanese warmachine and starved them out, would have been a better choice. Then the emporer would be at blame for every life that was lost, because of refusal to surrendur.

Surrenduring to japan was not an option. It could have easily built back up, if we surrendured, and continued plundering other nations(unless Russia felt like having some more territory). A surrendur would have shattered US confidence in the government, and Russia would have been virtually free to take western europe, the middle east, and probably eventually all land that connected to europe/asia.

While I agree that nuclear weapons on civilian bases were unnessecary, we had to force japan to surrendur. A combination of nuking larger military bases or military-important cities, while a heavy blockade destroyed the japanese warmachine and starved them out, would have been a better choice. Then the emporer would be at blame for every life that was lost, because of refusal to surrendur.

I'll agree with that to a point, but keep in mind i'm an annoyingly bleeding heart liberal, and I'll admit it. Surrendering, as you said, would have destroyed trust, and finding an alternative would probably be better, and I don't see why we didn't try what you said. We jumped on the "NUKE EM!!" conclution way to fast, we were eager I think. I still think surrendering is still better than the bomb, but there a certainly, I'm sure, many options better than surrendering. It's that in the middle area that should have been paid attention too. We also could have tried to exsplain more to them what exactly this bomb was going to do and where it was going to land (maybe not exact cordinates but "civilian city" would have been pretty triggering). However, I am not completely aware of whether or not this did actually happen, and I'm off to research it right now. But yes, I would say I agree with you, as my views usually need some moderate counter-balance in them, I admit.

I'll agree with that to a point, but keep in mind i'm an annoyingly bleeding heart liberal, and I'll admit it. Surrendering, as you said, would have destroyed trust, and finding an alternative would probably be better, and I don't see why we didn't try what you said. We jumped on the "NUKE EM!!" conclution way to fast, we were eager I think. I still think surrendering is still better than the bomb, but there a certainly, I'm sure, many options better than surrendering. It's that in the middle area that should have been paid attention too. We also could have tried to exsplain more to them what exactly this bomb was going to do and where it was going to land (maybe not exact cordinates but "civilian city" would have been pretty triggering). However, I am not completely aware of whether or not this did actually happen, and I'm off to research it right now. But yes, I would say I agree with you, as my views usually need some moderate counter-balance in them, I admit.

Hindsight is 20/20. Think about that. You can stand back, look at the problems, look at the solution, analyze, compramise, propose. Truman didn't have that luxury. That's what it means to lead. You have to make desicions on incomplete knowledge against a brutal time limit.

Every day that war went on more and more troops died. More troops burned out, have you read the reports on troop fatigue? It wasn't just the invasion of Japan that had everyone scared, the very continuation of the war was driving our men into the ground. People couldn't take it; look at the reports on those soldiers shipped out from Europe to go to Japan. These men were just barely short of widespread mutiny; they felt they had done their duty, and were being sent now to die on some sandy beach.

Government to Government channels are had to open, hard to maintain, and not always reaching the right ears. The Japanese refusal to surrender after Hiroshima was a great shock to the US administration. Thus the second bomb, and the threat of more...but still, no surrender.

Perhaps you heard that a coup was attempted in the palace, where members of the military tried to prevent the surrernder order from getting out. They were foiled by CHANCE, beacue and air raid on an oil plant some 50 miles away blacked out Tokyo, preventing the coup from finding the surrender orders.

We were THAT CLOSE to fighting WW2 to a very different end. But nobody knew that for years. How close were we to commiting genocide against all of Japan, simply to stop the fighting? Its not as if WE surrendered the Japanese would stop fighting, no, they'd commite those forces to resecuring their lost assets, and drop everyone they could into fighting China. I'm not sure how that would be a good thing.

Yes its true, the bigwigs lead from the rear and send the poor to die. This has always been the case, and when they lead from the front, things aren't much better. But that's war, there's nothing one can do about the nature of war, simply try to use that nature to their advantage and try to avoid falling into war wherever they can.

If war were any prettier there'd be far too much of it.